As Good as Live Aid (85)

Tuesday, April 22

A guy not good enough to play for the Oilers put the final nail not only in the playoff hopes of the W. Capitals tonight, but also my waning interest in the Stanley Cup tourney in general. If not for Pittsburgh still in it I'd probably be in full "Who gives a shit" mode by now.

It's a shame for many reasons. One is that now instead of watching A. Ovechkin who is so fucking awesome that seeing him makes everyone in America want to play hockey, we get to watch R.J. Umberger. YES! The Um! The Berger! Just in case you don't know, he'll be #20.With Washington out, that eliminates the NHL Dream Machine of the first of many Crosby/Ovechkin playoff matchups. What it puts in its place is a Montreal/Philadelphia contest which for me is like choosing between eating the bad chicken or eating the bad fish; no matter what happens, I am going to be sick about it.

I obviously detest the Flyers because, you know, I care about human life on this planet. And besides, a team which bases its community identity on how many of the oppositions players will be eating through a straw for the next month is not the feel good team of the year. On the other hand, a Montreal win will come back to haunt all of us in the near future because unlike Senators fans, Habs fans actually have a leg to stand on and can string several sentences together composed of polysyllabic words which don't end in *burp!*

I hate myself for saying this but, right now between those two, I have to go with Philadelphia. I wholesale reject all this "a Canadian team should win" bullshit. There is only one Canadian team, which happens to be Canada's team, and that is the Toronto Maple Leafs, and if you don't like that, you can fuck off and go read Scarlett Ice for the rest of the spring. I want the Flyers to win because if/when they meet the Penguins in the conference final, it will be interesting. And, according to stats I just made up, Crosby owns the Flyers and they'll be beaten. Another reason is that Moose is now on the Canadiens bandwagon seeing as how 20 years ago, him and his friend Y.T. latched onto them during the 86' Cup run because Y.T. pretended to be Patrick Roy while they shot tennis balls in his driveway at his sister. And they say hockey isn't thriving in America!